Blood disease-focused biotechnology company Hemogenyx Pharmaceuticals will receive support in the research, development and marketing of new drugs in return for licensing out the resulting product to the unnamed new partner.
Hemogenyx will receive "cost-free" technical support, as well as access to advanced methods of discovering, developing and engineering antibodies in order to assist with its preclinical development of its lead candidate bi-specific CDX antibodies.

In return, Brooklyn-based Hemogenyx will grant the pharmaceutical company a research license for anything jointly developed under the agreement, as well as an option for an exclusive worldwide license to commercially exploit CDX antibodies or any variants.

The AIM-listed company recently reported that its lead CDX bi-specific antibody treatment was capable of attacking and eliminating the acute myelogenous leukemia blood cancer. This laboratory test was carried out in its patent-pending 'humanised mouse' model, which uses a chimeric mouse-human blood system.

This has already led to the March agreement of a collaboration with a "major US biotechnology company" to use the humanised mice for further research, generating revenue for the company of approximately $250,000 plus potential further results-related income. Then earlier this month a collaboration was agreed with the Rockefeller University for its scientists to use the humanized mice for autoimmune disease modelling in an effort to develop new treatments for autoimmune diseases - specifically Lupus.

Hemogenyx's main focus is on developing new therapies that it hopes could do away with the need for chemotherapy or radiation before bone marrow and blood stem cell transplants, which would eradicate the need to find a perfectly donor match.

Dr Vladislav Sandler, chief executive of Hemogenyx, said, "This agreement provides additional support for our development plans for CDX antibodies, and complements the work that we are already undertaking with our own resources."

"This close collaboration offers the potential for ongoing value-adding licensing arrangements with a major global pharmaceutical company with the benefit of their global reach and large-scale resources," he added.

As of 0900 BST, shares in Hemogenyx, which reversed into AIM-listed cash shell Silver Falcon last October after a £2m fundraising offer at 3.5p per share, had shot up 24% to as high as 4.7p on Monday morning, before retreating to 3.97p.

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